Running windows programs under Linux

[Robert Heller]

At Fri, 29 Aug 2014 13:10:13 -0400 "Ubuntu user technical support,  not for general discussions" <ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com> wrote:

> 
> 
> On 08/29/2014 12:13 PM, Tom H wrote:
> > On Fri, Aug 29, 2014 at 9:54 AM,  <nilesrogoff at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> On Aug 29, 2014, at 3:39, Tom H <tomh0665 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>> AFAIK, there's no longer a kvm package in Ubuntu, except for a
> >>> transitional qemu-kvm one.
> >>>
> >>> # dpkg -l | grep qemu
> >>> ii  ipxe-qemu
> >>> 1.0.0+git-20131111.c3d1e78-2ubuntu1                 all          PXE
> >>> boot firmware - ROM images for qemu
> >>> ii  qemu-keymaps
> >>> 2.0.0+dfsg-2ubuntu1.2                               all          QEMU
> >>> keyboard maps
> >>> ii  qemu-system-common
> >>> 2.0.0+dfsg-2ubuntu1.2                               amd64        QEMU
> >>> full system emulation binaries (common files)
> >>> ii  qemu-system-x86
> >>> 2.0.0+dfsg-2ubuntu1.2                               amd64        QEMU
> >>> full system emulation binaries (x86)
> >>> ii  qemu-utils
> >>> 2.0.0+dfsg-2ubuntu1.2                               amd64        QEMU
> >>> utilities
> >> I don't have access to a computer right now but also try apt-cache search kvm
> > Please bottom-post.
> >
> > As I said above, there's a transitional qemu-kvm package that
> > apt-cache would find.
> >
> > The point was, and I mis-expressed myself, that I'm running kvm
> > without having a package named "*kvm*" installed.
> >
> Maybe I missed something. How do you run a program if you don't have 
> that program?

kvm is not a 'program' (like Virtual Box or Parallels). It is *similar* to
Xen, in that it provides virtualization at a 'kernel' level, rather than via a
virtualization *program*. Both kvm and xen are 'native' (linux) virtualization
systems, unlike Virtual Box or Parallels or VMWare. Xen runs as a kind of
super-kernel with the host running as Dom0  -- that is your 'host' system is
itself a virtual machine that is connected to all of the bare metal hardware
(nothing is actually emulated). Kvm works differently in that there isn't a
hypervisor running independently of the host operating system.  I believe Kvm 
is directly supported by modern Linux kernels, in that the hypervisor logic is 
embeded in the host kernel itself -- no additional packages are needed to have 
Kvm functionallity.

Both use a virtualization library (eg libvirt) and a hypervisor interface
module (eg qemu) to interface between the host system and the virtual machines
and virtual networks and virtual disks (if any). There is usually a CLI
interface (virsh) and maybe a GUI interface (virt-manager) and some other
assorted virt-<mumble> utilities and daemons. Both kvm and xen allow for using
'real' disks (or in a realistic sense, logical partitions or logical volumns)
for the virtual machines, which is very handy for things like migration and/or
backup.

So all you need to install is the hypervisor interface and support logic:
virsh, virt-manager, and the various support libraries and daemons. This would
be in packages like *qemu* or *libvirt* or virt-manager, none of which would
necessarily have 'kvm' as part of their names (they might depending on how
things might have been packaged). The only difference between kvm and xen is
that xen needs the super-kernel/hypervisor (xen itself, which requires 
additional magic with grub using multiboot [grumble]), and needs a xen
capable kernel (modern Linux kernels include the xen support modules, etc.).

> --doug
> 

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